I used to play cricket when I was younger and it is amazing how many times I would go into bat and things would feel pretty good but when I was out of form I always got that nick through to the keeper or worse still found myself run out. Then one day that would change and the nicks would start flying past the slips and the fielder would no longer hit the stumps direct.
Betting is a lot like cricket and sometimes you are doing everything right, but you just can’t seem to turn effort into results. This week has been a long slog for me in the Tour de France and while I tend to bet fairly small in cycling I did get quite involved on Tuesday’s stage.
Let’s get the real bad news out of the way first in that I placed a match bet at prohibitive odds of 11/20 that Thomas De Gendt would lose to Alessandro De Marchi. I assumed De Gendt would soft pedal as he had a lot of work to do the next day and I also assumed De Marchi would infiltrate the break. I was wrong on both counts.
The stage could have been rescued though as I had backed Tadej Podacar for the win at 11/1 only for him to finish second to favourite Primoz Roglic. Another fancy I had on the stage was Lopez to finish on the podium at 10/1 and he looked to be heading for a 3rd place finish when he was forced to break hard with just a couple of hundred metres to go eventually finishing 6th.
The worst break though was a match bet treble at just shy of 4/1 I took on the stage with the first two legs arriving comfortably. I scrolled down the results page and should have guessed that the two would finish together in the same time, but that Bardet, the man I had backed was just pipped to the line by Uran meaning I had lost every bet placed on the stage.
I love the Tour de France whether or not I am betting on it, but I have to say I will be relieved when my form returns as at the moment it feels like every ball I nick is carrying through into the safe hands of the keeper.
Twitter: @BrentGraham.
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 3 September 2020.
Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register